Page 58 - br-april-2022

April 2022 April 2022

WILD WOODBURY

A further month of volunteer
days and school visits on site
has really helped prep Wild
Woodbury before Spring and
Summer. We have made
further progress in spreading
piles of blackthorn and other
scrub around the site, having
cut it from footpaths and
fence lines, which will act
nicely as cover for nesting
birds, small mammals, and
emerging vegetation. In fact,
I’ve already seen multiple
flocks of bird enjoying the
protection they give. Twelve school group visits over the past month have also
helped punch holes through some hedges on site, interconnecting fields for when
we have livestock on site in the future. It’s great to see the enthusiasm of the yr7’s
and 8’s on site, getting stuck into the work and asking lots of questions about
rewilding.
We have finally managed to get our water monitoring equipment installed on site
too. Battling through the week of storm Eunice, the company dug in v-notch weirs
and dip-wells across the site, allowing us to measure water flow rates, levels of
suspended sediments and nutrient make up of the water. This is the first step in
working towards Stage 0 River Restoration, where we aim to re-naturalise the
water flows across site, potentially gaining 40 hectares of new wetland. We don’t
really know what these will look
like, it could be standing water,
little pools, ephemeral pools...
it’s going to be a surprise!
Whatever it looks like, however,
it will certainly be beneficial to
wildlife, it will help lock up
carbon in the sediments, and it
will aid the de-nitrification of
the water flowing through.
There are several surveys set up
across the site, with many due
to start in Spring, which will
help form the baseline data for
Wild Woodbury. This is a really

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